


Sum by Count

by orphan_account



Category: Battle For Dream Island (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Friends, Discussion of Abortion, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, HEY author here, I'll be orphaning it, Immaturity, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mpreg, No Smut, Nonbinary Four, Nonbinary X, Other, Please don't judge me, Reality Bending, Redemption, Unplanned Pregnancy, at least no explicit smut, because this fic is a cringy gross mess, both these fuckheads are still grade schoolers emotionally, four is a dick but he gets better, four is a little baby bitch, four learning to be a better person, frenemies to lovers, goiky has no doctors, i just wanna say i regret this fic!, if i ever do anything with this concept ever again im gonna start from scratch, lets get the first tag out of the way, numbers... on the other hand..., objects DO NOT FUCK, objects barely get organic biology, sorry for anyone i made uncomfy!, takes place between bfb 12 and 13, they just die, x is a little baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:59:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “It’s okay, I think I’m close enough to see now,” Tennis Ball replied.  “Oh wow, I think you have some kind of parasite! There’s something super weird and bug looking in this organ here!”  he pointed out.Unfortunately, it was not a parasite.---Hopefully will be continued!!
Relationships: 4/X, 4x - Relationship, Four & X, Four (Battle for Dream Island)/X (Battle for Dream Island), Four/X, Golf Ball & Tennis Ball
Comments: 1
Kudos: 69





	1. Knocked Up a Notch

**Author's Note:**

> So uh, Michael? Cary? Have mercy on my soul plz. 
> 
> Anyways, I wanted to write BFDI fanfic, and this concept would not leave me alone. 
> 
> This takes place a few weeks after BFB 12.
> 
> Also major warning: Four is definitely not a good person at the beginning of this fic. He gets pretty violent and threatening towards everyone, especially X. He'll get better though.

Golf Ball was hard at work with her best friend Tennis Ball. They were just cleaning her underground factory, it was still a mess after the incident with that artificial Dream Island, and she’d barely had a chance to work on sorting things out since BFB had started.

_ tap. tap. _

“GB? I hear something at the entrance to the factory,” mentioned Tennis Ball offhandedly as he sorted through a pile of gears, looking for salvagable parts.

Golf Ball let out a groan at this. “Who could it even be? It’s night time outside, and I was  **sure** I made it clear to not bother us!”

She looked up the stairs. A very dim amount of moonlight shone down through it, but the glow of the incinerator still kept things somewhat well lit. “I’ll go check on it. Hopefully I can make it quick,” she said to Tennis Ball. With a small huff, she got onto her feet and began to trot up the staircase.

  
  


Once she reached the top, she noticed X was nervously standing at the entrance, shifting a bit from side to side once he noticed her arrival. His mouth was pinched shut in a wobbly expression.

“X? Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with Four… doing hosting preparations or something?” she wondered. 

“Uh, well…” he mumbled a bit. Then he blurted it out. “Are you able to do doctor stuff??”

Golf Ball was confused at this. X didn’t seem sick or injured, and if he was, couldn’t Four just commit some sort of reality bending madness and heal him? 

“Objects usually don’t need doctors. Most of the time when something goes wrong we just die and then get recovered. But I do have a bit of experience with biology. Tennis Ball does too,” she explained while examining X a bit, trying to see any obvious issues with his body or behavior. “What are your symptoms?” she inquired.

“I’m not the one feeling funny,” said X. 

“Really? Then who is?” questioned Golf Ball.

“Um… it’s Four,” muttered X.

Golf Ball was even more baffled at this! “But he seemed fine during the last episode!” she recalled. He had even seemed to be friendlier than usual.

“That was a few weeks ago though. In the last couple of days, he’s been having… issues,” he stated.

“Well then, what are his symptoms?”

“He keeps feeling nauseous around random stuff, and even threw up a few times!” he described. 

Then recollection of something flashed on X’s face. “Don’t go spreading this around. Four said he doesn’t want too many people knowing about this. I had to beg him to let me get you!” he insisted.

“Can I at least tell TB? He could have some good insight.” she said.    
  


“Okay, but no one else,” X said. He fidgeted with his hands a bit.

With that, Golf Ball made her way down the stairs to get Tennis Ball.

  
  


“Hey, change of plans. We need to help Four, X says he isn’t feeling well,” Golf Ball said as she hopped down the last steps.

“Wow, it must really be an issue if Four can’t mess with the universe and fix things himself somehow,” said Tennis Ball. He set down a gear he had been holding between his feet.

“I’m hoping that I can study him a bit. I’m still not sure what sort of logic his body even functions on, and it’d be interesting to investigate.”

“Sounds like a plan to me!” he agreed. As they turned around to go back to X, they both realized Four, was standing directly behind them with a rather annoyed expression. X was there a few feet behind as well. Tennis Ball stumbled back a bit at this, and Golf Ball was fairly startled too. 

“Let's just get this over with,” Four grumbled with his arms crossed. “I’m only doing this because there’s no other option.”

“Okay, how do you feel right now?” asked Tennis Ball. 

“Like my insides are grumpy,” Four bluntly stated, not moving his equally dissatisfied stare off of the two sports balls.

“That’s a strange way to put it, but okay?” said Tennis Ball. “When did it start?”

“When we stopped for lunch the other day, I couldn’t even have the sandwiches around me without wanting to turn them into puke piles!” Four clarified. “They smelled like lots of turkey,” he cringed. Then he straightened himself a bit. “Now lots of things are smelly and make me want to throw up!” 

X spoke up. “Everything that makes Four feel sick smells fine to me!” he pitched in.

“Strange! May I run some tests?” Golf Ball asked.

Four let out a large sigh at this. “Fine. But if I tell you to stop you  _ are _ going to stop,”

“Perfect!” yipped Golf Ball as she approached Four. “Tennis Ball! Could you take notes while I check this out?”

“Of course!” he replied. He pulled out a pad of paper and a pen from the pile of junk behind him. Hopefully they would have time to finish cleaning the factory some other day.

“Okay, I’ve never really done much stuff like this before, but I suppose we should start with checking your vitals!” Golf Ball guessed. She walked over to a pile of inventions. “Let’s see… here it is!” 

She pulled out a large contraption, which vaguely resembled a megaphone with a pair of binoculars on top and a touchscreen towards the back. “It’s my Listening and Watching Device, or LWD!” she stated as she adjusted the slider settings on the screen. “It was going to be used for monitoring other teams, but I feel like it can be repurposed for monitoring bodies,” she reasoned. 

She brought it over, carrying it on her head due to lack of arms. “I wonder if you have a circulatory system? Let’s start with checking for a heart rate,” she said as she adjusted a pair of headphones. Golf Ball glanced at Four’s arms and noticed it’d be rather hard to measure with his chest blocked. “Do you mind?” she hinted.

With a grunt, Four uncrossed his arms. Golf Ball plopped down on the ground for better positioning, and lifted the megaphone section to one side of Four’s chest. As soon as the device touched his abdomen, Golf Ball heard the worst dosage of the screech she had ever gotten, and everything went to black.

  
  


“Four?!  _ Why _ would you do that??” shot Tennis Ball. The screech hadn’t actually been that bad for bystanders, but through an audio device it was enough to knock Golf Ball unconscious and nearly send her flying across the room.

“Four, if you didn’t want to come here you could have just told me so!” cried X.

“I didn’t plan on doing that. Her thing made my chest hurt.” said Four. To Tennis Ball, he seemed genuinely confused, but TB wasn’t so sure about things. 

“Maybe… we should just come back to that later. I’ll note down ‘chest pains’ on the list of symptoms though,” he said as he jotted it down in ink. Then he gently lifted the LWD off of Golf Ball’s sleeping body and put it on. “Okay, now let’s try this! Golf Ball mentioned there’s a scanner setting to look through walls. If I can set it to recognize your skin as a wall, maybe I could look inside you for any problems!” he explained as he fiddled with the digital buttons and dials across the screen. “Done!” Then he pointed the binocular lenses, which began to glow green, at Four.

“Wow! Your insides are very interesting!” said Tennis Ball in awe.

Four straightened up a bit at this, his previously upset expression reacting to the comment as if it were praise. “I am a very interesting number!” he boasted. X giggled a bit at this.

The LWD’s showed Four’s innards in shades of blue. Tennis Ball could see that Four seemed to be missing several organs common to biological creatures, similar to how objects lacked most organs all together. Including a traditional heart. “Guess we didn’t even need to look for a heart rate,” mentioned Tennis Ball. 

However, Four still definitely possessed a digestive system, nervous system, and… some other system. Tennis Ball knew it was one that was common in several organic species, but he couldn’t remember what it did or what it was called. Better look it up later. There was also some sort of pitch black blob near his inner mouth. Tennis Ball tapped the screen a bit, at first thinking it was some dead pixels that had appeared suddenly.

“Uh, Four? Any idea why there would be a weird rifty looking thing inside your throat?” asked Tennis Ball.

“Mm, it’s a portal. But it’s personal! It leads to somewhere that isn’t really important to this.” Four deflected.

“Okay, nevermind then,” said Tennis Ball, deciding not to prod any further.  _ ‘If Golf Ball were awake, she’d probably demand the information for the sake of her research,’  _ he thought. But then something caught his eye. The LWD was highlighting a small dot in Four’s hips. More specifically, within an organ belonging to the bodily system TB was unable to name. 

“Hold on Four, there’s something weird down here” Tennis Ball said as he leaned in closer to Four’s lower abdomen. 

“Hey! Any closer and you’ll be next to Golf Ball over there! And I’ll do it on purpose this time!” he said when Tennis Ball was inches away from his crotch.

“It’s okay, I think I’m close enough to see now,” Tennis Ball replied. “Oh wow, I think you have some kind of parasite! There’s something super weird and bug looking in this organ here!” he pointed out.

“Do numbers even get parasites? I’ve never heard of anyone back home getting one!” said X. Four shrugged at this. 

X then interjected as soon as Tennis Ball was about to speak. “Here, let me see!” X sauntered over and looked at the screen. Horror dawned on his face when he realized what he was looking at. 

“No… This has to be a big bad nightmare!!!” he cried out. He may not have been the brightest variable on the Equation Playground, but he had very basic knowledge from the minimalist biology classes they had undergone there.

“What! Is it something bad??” Four asked with a bit of a worried expression.

“Promise not to panic?” asked X, still in a bit of a shock.

“Just tell me!” snapped Four.

“I think it’s a baby.” X said, staring off into space behind Four and preparing for a storm of rage. Tennis Ball was watching in utter confusion, but didn’t say anything. Golf Ball was beginning to stir, so he scooted over to her.

“X! What did I tell you about trying to play jokes on me!” shouted Four. 

“Four I’m not joking. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure.” X quavered.

Four took a minute to process this. “Show me.” he said with an uncomfortably calm voice.

“O-okay…” muttered X. He shifted the LWD into a position where Four could lean over the top of it and view the screen from upside down. Four reached down and trailed his fingers across the screen in the general area of the small embryonic figure.

“ **You did this to me.** You aren’t going to get out of this one, X.” he said in an ice cold voice. X was visibly trembling at this point, fearful tears welling up in his eyes.

Golf Ball was waking up at this point. She rolled onto her feet and blinked the sleep out of her eyes. “What’s happening?” she said, then after a pause to analyze the situation, she spoke up again. “Why are these two fighting?”

“I have no clue. We found a weird thing inside Four’s body using your machine, X said something about it being a baby, but Four is mad at  **X** for causing it, and I have no idea how any of that would even happen,” he explained. “It could just be Four and X being weird as usual,”

“Wait. Baby inside Four, like one of those live-birthing methods of reproduction some species have?” Golf Ball asked.

“Oh right! Reproductive systems! I forgot those existed!” Tennis Ball recalled. Then he grew puzzled. “Wait, those require a partner, don’t they?”

“Yes, and I think I know what’s going on!” Golf Ball declared. Then she directed her gaze towards the pair of mathematical beings. When she saw that Four was charging a zappy attack, she leapt forwards. “Four! Stop that! X likely didn’t mean to!”

Four looked over the side of his shoulder, continuing to charge the attack meanwhile. “How do you know? You can’t read his mind!”

“Soon I will be able to though...” Golf Ball muttered under her breath. She felt that the MMR would be useful once it was completed.

“Wait, what?” Four asked.

"Yeah, what?" X added. His voice was still a bit shaky from the ongoing threat on his well being.

“Nothing! What matters is that violence won’t fix this!” she continued.

“But it usually fixes most things that bother me!” Four retorted.

“Did it keep you from being factored?” Golf Ball bounced back. Four flinched at this.

X piped in again, growing a little more bold than he was before. “She’s kindaaaa got a point. That kind of happened because you were being too much of a meany,”

Four snorted at X, and X recoiled when their gazes met. Then Four turned back to Golf Ball. 

“Can we at the very least have a civil conversation before jumping into zapping?” Golf Ball said. “I’d prefer if you didn’t turn my factory into a warzone.”

Four blew out the glow in his hand as if it were merely a candle. “Finnnnnneee, but I’m still super angry!!”

They all settled down on the ground in a small circle. X was still rather shaken, biting his bottom lip.    
  
“So… X got you pregnant, correct?” Golf Ball asked.

“Yes, and it’s all his fault!” Four insisted.

“Doesn’t that require you to have physical contact with him in a sexual way?” Golf Ball prodded.

Both extraterrestrials grew a colored tint across their faces at this. X shoved his burning face down into his hands, and Four tried to avoid eye contact by simply looking away. 

“Maybe. But it’s not like… that!” Four said, gesturing at the air for emphasis. X moaned in shame. “Our relationship is mostly professional. We’re friends at best!”

“Wait, I may be wrong, because I’ve only  _ read _ about this kind of thing, but doesn’t sexual reproduction require a male sire and a female carrier?” asked Tennis Ball.

“Numbers don’t really have that kind of system, biologically  _ or  _ socially. I still barely understand what the difference between the two is. Back where we come from, all that mattered was your value and whether you were odd or even,” Four clarified.

“Oh,” said Tennis Ball. He bounced his foot a bit while thinking. “Sooo if you did do, uh,  _ things _ with X, wouldn’t that mean you had to give him permission?”

“Well I  _ didn’t _ give him permission to add a big problem in our lives! But yes, I did give him permission to do thingies with me,” Four added.

“So you’re blaming X, because something he did caused a problem, when you gave him permission to do the thing in the first place?” Golf Ball asked in a puzzled way.

“Well, yeah! I’m just angry and I wanna let him know that!” Four reasoned.

“Yeah, even I can tell that is not a functional way to deal with your emotions towards other people, and that’s saying something,” said Golf Ball.

Four let out a shrill growl at this. It was taking nearly all of his willpower to not kill everyone right then, right there. “Critique my methods again and you’ll be zappy zapped,” he hissed as he wiggled his fingers. 

“Okay! Jeez! I was just saying that it’s not logical to me,” assured Golf Ball. 

“Well it’s logical to me!” said Four.

“Does this mean I get in trouble or not?” asked X.

“You’re safe this time, but I am not pleased about these things X!” Four declared.

“Aw... “

“I don’t know what reaction I was expecting, but once I realized what was happening I predicted things would go differently,” Tennis Ball said.

“I’m still kind of in shock…” X fretted. “This is too much to process,”

“We’ll figure it out in the morning. It’s the middle of the night outside,” Four said.

“If you want, you can come back some other time and we can discuss plans from here?” she asked. 

“That’d be nice!” X said. Four gave a small reluctant nod.

Four and X got up to leave, but then Golf Ball had a sudden realization. 

“Wait, what does this mean for the Battle for BFDI?!” she shouted. 


	2. Planning Stages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Golf Ball, Four, and X come up with a basic plan.

_ Four and X, a younger Four and X, to be exact, were sitting on the swings.  _

_ “Thanks for coming to hang out with me Four. I know you haven’t really wanted to hang out with me much lately,” X thanked. _

_ “It’s fine, sometimes the other numbers can be a lot to handle. It’s nice to just get to be with you sometimes,” Four reassured. Then he looked down at his feet and kicked around for a while.  _

_ When he looked back up, X was staring off into the distance, a forlorn look in his eyes. _

_ “X? What’s going on?” Four asked. He looked even more empty than when he didn’t know his value. _

_ “Hey, I have a question.” X stated. _

_ “Yeah?” _

_ “How much do you think things would have to change for us to stop being friends?” X asked. _

_ Four took a suspicious look at X. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” he quizzed. _

_ X put his hands up. “No! I mean the opposite!” he soothed. Then he slumped down a bit. “I’m just worried that if stuff changes any more, we’ll stop being together.” _

_ “Don’t say stuff like that! You know we’ll always be best friends!” Four said with a concerned look. X seemed to flinch at the word ‘friends’. “Anymore of this gloomy talk outta you and I’ll have to be your personal therapist!” he exclaimed. _

_ “Heh, yeah. I wouldn’t want to force that on you,” nervously chuckled X. “But you aren’t even worried about something like your other friends or a fight or, or even romance getting in the way?” he asked. “We’re getting to that age where those things are kicking in,” _

_ “You don’t  _ **_need_ ** _ to be jealous, and fights happen between friends all the time! But what’s that about love? Do you have some crush I need to know about?” Four hinted with a goofy yet suggestive look. _

_ God. X wanted to tell him about his true feelings right there, right then. But instead he just got flustered. “N-no! I just noticed that the other numbers are all dealing with these things, and I was worried it’d bother us too.” he lied. _

_ “Hm, okay! You don’t need to worry! ‘Sides, your sadness is starting to make me feel bummed out too,” Four assured. _

_ “Promise?” _

_ “Promise!” _

* * *

The next morning, X rubbed the drowsiness out of his eyes, and looked over a few feet away, to where Four was lying with his back turned.

“That probably wasn’t a dream then,” he murmured.

“Yeah. Not a ‘big bad nightmare’,” Four suddenly snarked, continuing to lay in place. X jumped a bit at this. He hadn’t realized Four was awake. 

The other contestants were beginning to stir as well. X crawled over to where Four was laying and nudged him. “Come on, let’s go see if Golf Ball and Tennis Ball are up. We need to finish our conversation from last night,” 

Four wordlessly rose, and now X could see that he had a numb look on his face. They just kind of stood there for a minute once he had gotten onto his feet.

“Um, we can go now-” X began, but he was cut off by Four suddenly levitating both of them. Then the blue number grabbed the ground like a blanket, and dragged it off, arms stretching into the distance. Once the factory entrance was underfoot, he let go and retracted his arms. All of this was done in a matter of seconds. 

Reality warping host powers really came in handy when you wanted to get tasks done quickly, even if they often looked bizarre to an outsider.

With a cold and awkward silence between them, they walked down the stairs. Four never spoke up and X was too nervous to make conversation.

X tried to distract himself, looking at the gears exposed by holes in the walls, and the twirling fans placed in a few areas. But he still couldn’t stop his mind from racing. 

_ ‘How are we going to juggle hosting and dealing with a baby? Is there no other way out? What will the contestants and the viewers think?’ _

_ ‘Will Four ever trust me again?’ _

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they were greeted by Golf Ball. She was visibly tired and tapping her foot a bit.

"Where's Tennis Ball?" X asked.

"TB isn't here right now, but I can discuss your predicament for a bit before I need to get back to my projects," she clarified. Four nodded at this a bit.

“Okay, so what are we gonna do about the next contest in relation to…” she gestured to Four with one of her feet, with a slightly awkward expression “...this,”

Four’s expression somehow managed to get even more sour than it already was. “The Battle for BFDI will continue. Do you really think I’d let anything get in the way of hosting?”

“Four, don’t you think that’ll just make things harder?” X demurred. Four replied with nothing but a harsh death glare, which X let out a frightened squeak at.

“Four, why can’t you just make it go away? I’m sure your weird nonsensical powers could easily remove this problem,” Golf Ball asked. 

“Trust me, I was trying to abort this thing last night after we left. But number embryos are super duper sturdy, especially against host powers,” Four muttered. “It just kept fixing itself into there no matter how much I tried to dismemble it out of myself!”

“Great. The one thing your powers can’t do is solve this mess,” Golf Ball said. “How far along do you think you are?”

“Probably about week six or seven I think? It looks about that size and uh, we  _ did _ … do it then,” X put in while getting a bit flustered. 

“You didn’t need to mention that part,” Four snapped at him with fangs showing. 

“Sorry…” X apologized. “But what’s the exact plan for all this?”

“Well, we sure as Pythagoras aren’t going to tell anyone else about this unless we have to. Once it’s born it shouldn’t be too hard to sneak it off to the Equation Playground and dump it with the other digitlets. Another number will be sure to take it in,” he reasoned. “Hiding that I’m carrying this thing is going to be the hard part. I could probably hide how I’m feeling and shapeshift away any minor changes to how I look, but after a while it’ll get too tiring to do it constantly,”

“So me and Tennis Ball just shouldn’t tell anyone else, correct?” asked Golf Ball.

“If you tell anyone else, you’ll be taught your lesson for doing so,” Four said with eyes narrowed in a threatening manner.

"Understood. This situation is only between the four of us," she affirmed.

"I still don't understand why this had to happen to us, the hosts! Of all the people on this show,  _ we _ were the one who ended up having a screw up like this," Four complained. 

"Well, objects don't really reproduce that way. Some of us  _ do _ reproduce asexually, that's what happened by accident with Firey and Firey Jr back before the first season. But it didn't really mess up anything for Firey, newborn flame objects tend to be fairly self sufficient," Golf Ball explained. "It's still unfortunate that this happened to you though," she added.

"Thanks, I guess. X, let's head out. I need to check on the EXITors in a bit anyways," Four said.

And with that, they left the factory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably going to open most chapters with some sort of flashback to Four and X's past. Sorry that this chapter is a bit shorter than the last one and took a while, I struggled to write it for a bit.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I haven't written fanfics in a very long time. I've also never written for this fandom! So everyone might be a little OOC, and the pace might be wonky.


End file.
